Football great Malcolm Blight honoured with bronze statue at Adelaide Oval

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A bronze statue of South Australian football legend Malcolm Blight has been unveiled at Adelaide Ovaloutside the Victor Richardson gates.

Blight, who transitioned from prolific goal kicker to successful coach said he was surprised by the honour.

Much loved by South Australians for leading the Adelaide Crows to back-to-back premierships, Blight is the only player to kick 100 goals in a season in both the VFL and SANL.

"It's actually difficult to describe, to be honest," he said about the statue.

"The first emotion when I heard about the sculpture was surprise and the second was that my football life flashed before my eyes a little."

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Blight joins fellow South Australians football legends Barrie Robran and Russell Ebert in bronze at the Adelaide Oval.

"I like to think that if Barrie represents the north of the state and Russell represents the Riverland, I like the thought that I might represent the suburbs of Adelaide where so much grassroots footy is played.

"It's an incredible honour and I am forever grateful."

Sculptor Meliesa Judge said she wanted to capture the long-kicking style typical of 1970s Australian Rules in the artwork.

"It is a huge process - it took us 3,260 hours, we just added it all up this week," she said.

"Quite a lot of that was just creating the original using clay ... creating the design and making the clay is the most enjoyable part of the process."

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Malcolm Blight in action in 1969

Judge worked with life models and photographs to create the work.

"It's a very distinct style of football they were playing he was really playing the long kicks that they don't play so much anymore and we really wanted to capture that energy in this sculpture.

"It's a very dynamic piece and it's got a strong athletic feel."

Blight played 163 games for Woodville and won the Magarey Medal in 1972 before moving to North Melbourne in 1972 where he went on to play 178 games and kick 444 goals.

He won two premierships with North Melbourne and won the 1978 Brownlow Medal before returning to Woodville to play and coach.